Know your audience

Make sure you're marketing to the type of audience most likely to stay at your hotel.

This obvious-but-essential tip is crucial for the success of any social media campaign—but is especially important for hotels.

When people look at your hotel's social accounts, they get a feel for what the experience will be like through your photos, videos, and tone of writing. So make sure to curate these to your target audience.

For example, if you're marketing a hipster hotel in Brooklyn, post photos of nightlife, coffee shops, and other things of interest to the twenty-and-thirty-somethings that frequent your property.

On the other hand, a hotel in Orlando may post more family-oriented things, like its proximity to Disney World and photos of the on-site pool.

Your visitors are staying at a boutique hotel for a reason: they want an experience unmatched by their local Hilton or Marriott. This will let them better enjoy the local scene and embrace local culture.

So with that in mind, showcase what your city has to offer on Instagram and other social networks.

Post about the best nearby restaurants, bars, and other cool activities. This will show your audience that there is awesome stuff to do close to the hotel so that they can live like a local during their stay.

And hey, you're giving a little free publicity to other local business owners—trust us, that equals good karma later down the line.

But don't forget about your business travelers

A post shared by Virgin Hotels (@virginhotels) on May 17, 2016 at 1:59pm PDT

We get it: it's tempting to showcase your boutique hotel solely to leisure travelers (it is more fun), you can't afford to overlook business travelers.

Make sure to show your hotel's business amenities on social media, mixing it in with the leisure posts. This will make your hotel more attractive to business travelers traveling on corporate budget, and is unlikely to deter any of your leisure travelers.

Keep this in mind when targeting ads too. Target your business amenities to people that travel often for work, and even consider running some LinkedIn ads.

This will make sure your ad dollars are spent on people who are putting hotel stays on company accounts, and don't mind spending a few extra dollars for comfort they may not find at a chain hotel.

Capitalize on user generated content

Nowadays, people are photographing every moment of their vacations: from the flight, to the beach, and yes, to the hotel.

Capitalize on this and encourage your customers to share their hotel pics using a specific hashtag. You can even incentivize them with raffles and giveaways to people sharing the best photos.

Why do this?

Simple: not only does this get your hotel in front of their audience, but gives you free reign to repost their content to your Instagram Stories.

This will give your audience and potential customers a real-life peek into what a stay at your hotel is like. This makes for an authentic social experience that's more credible than images taken by your staff.

Now it's your turn

And there you have it: 6 awesome tips for marketing your boutique hotel.

In the comments, let us know what you think of these tips. And if you want to be extra awesome, gives us some of your best hospitality marketing tips.